"We fully understand this citizen's request and also agree that he has the right to stay anonymous when accessing the Commission europa websites. But the Commission is obliged to keep the Commission websites available for all citizens. You can only realise this objective by implementing security measures, in this case preventing cyber-attacks that typically use the TOR network or similar VPN mechanisms. So to satisfy the higher rights of the general public, you are forced to block the TOR network and some other similar services, which implicitly blocks the possibility of some individuals to use anonymous access.

It should however be noted that The Commission strictly respects the Personal Data Protection legislation, which assures citizens that their IP-addresses won't be used for illicit purposes. This principle protects therefore the anonymity of the europa websites users."

For your information, your request will be closed.
Thank you for your understanding,

Why are you blocking access to the European Commission website
http://ec.europa.eu by Tor users (https://torproject.org) ?

How is such Chinese / Iranian style "Great Firewall of Europe"
style censorship compatible with the fundamental rights which the
European Union promotes ?

regards

[name]

1) What is the name of the official ( or at least the department) which has issued this controversial and unnecessary censorship policy ?

2) Tor is not useful for Denial of Service attacks - it uses full TCP connections and does not support UDP

3) Attempts at "armchair hacktivist" style web page / web log "sit in protest" clictivism are much more likely to overload parts of the the Tor cloud infrastructure than the European Commission website. Standard javascript "bait and switch" targeting tools like LOIC etc favoured by the easily fooled "Anonymous" band wagon followers do not use Tor to try to hide their originating IP addresses.

4) There could, perhaps be a case for Tor users to be blocked from setting up accounts or editing wiki pages or leaving comments on forums or blogs hosted by the European Commission. However, what they have done is to disproportionately filter even read only access to their entire web site by innocent Tor users..

5) What other " similar VPN mechanisms" are also being blocked ?

6) Claiming that because "IP-addresses won't be used for illicit purposes" by the European Commission, that this somehow "protects therefore the anonymity of the europa websites users." is nonsense ! Some important users of http://ec.europa.eu live under repressive regimes and some are under illegal surveillance even within the European Union.

How does blocking access to Tor users protect the IP addresses and identities of, say, Syrian or Byelorussian activists trying to find the contact details of European Union officials and diplomats on the European Commission website, from their evil local government ? They cannot risk having to use non-anonymised connections to the European Union websites, as these are used as intelligence or evidence of "foreign espionage" activities, thereby putting the activists' lives at risk.

7) What sort of a diplomatic message does this censorship policy send to repressive regimes around the world, which the European Union supposedly criticises for their
internet censorship schemes ?

8) Instead of the European Commission blocking Tor users, they should pro-actively make their website available to people living under repressive regimes who cannot access it because of country wide censorship, by also publishing it as a Tor Hidden Service

9) If this anti-Tor mindset within the European Commission is allowed to fester, it will malignly influence European Union policy directives affecting the fundamental rights of 450 million innocent European Union citizens.

This technological ignorance coupled with control freakery and Orwellian newspeak tainted lip service to fundamental human rights is exactly the sort of evil which we suffered under NuLabour and which the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government promised to reform.

Will no Euro-Sceptic politicians get the European Commission to reverse this repressive policy of theirs ?

1) What is the name of the official (or at least the department)
which has issued this controversial and unnecessary censorship
policy ?

We don't agree that it is censorship - the department in charge is called Directorate-General DIGIT.

2) Tor is *not* useful for Denial of Service attacks
- - it uses full TCP connections and does not support UDP

That's a comment not a question.

3) Attempts at "armchair hacktivist" style web page / web log "sit
in protest" clicktivism are much more likely to overload parts of
the the Tor cloud infrastructure than the European Commission
website. Standard javascript "bait and switch" targeting tools like
LOIC etc favoured by the easily fooled "Anonymous" band wagon
followers do not use Tor to try to hide their originating IP
addresses.

Again, a comment rather than a question.

4) There could, perhaps, be a case for Tor users to be blocked from
setting up accounts or editing wiki pages or leaving comments on
forums or blogs hosted by the European Commission. However, what
they have done is to *disproportionately filter even read only
access to their entire web site by innocent Tor users.*

Mrs Kroes agrees that there could be a better way to maintain our security standards, but she is not in charge of this internal policy / system.

5) What other "similar VPN mechanisms" are also being blocked ?

We in Mrs Kroes' team don't have access to this information.

6) Claiming that because "IP-addresses won't be used for illicit
purposes" by the European Commission, that this somehow "protects
therefore the anonymity of the europa websites users." is nonsense
! Some important users of http://ec.europa.eu live under repressive
regimes and some are under illegal surveillance even within the
European Union.

We are conscious of the restrictions many people around the world face to using the internet, and we address it directly
through our "No Disconnect Strategy"

How does blocking access to Tor users protect the IP addresses and
identities of, say, Syrian or Byelorussian activists trying to find
the contact details of European Union officials and diplomats on
the European Commission website, from their evil local government ?
They cannot risk having to use non-anonymised connections to the
European Union websites, as these are used as intelligence or
evidence of "foreign espionage" activities, thereby putting the
activists' lives at risk.

There are greater and more complicated issues in the scenario you outlined than the Commission's role in protecting users of its websites.

7) What sort of a diplomatic message does this censorship policy
send to repressive regimes around the world, which the European
Union supposedly criticises for their
internet censorship schemes ?

This is not a censorship policy. The EU supports very clearly, in writing and in action, efforts to make and keep the internet free, open and secure.

8) Instead of the European Commission blocking Tor users, they
should pro-actively make their website available to people living
under repressive regimes who cannot access it because of country
wide censorship, by also publishing it as a

This may have happened in October 2013, but we have only noticed this now, just before Christmas, because this "Great FireWall of Europe" ban has discouraged us from bothering to engage with the European Commision at all i.e. it has had a chilling effect on our freedom of speech and other Article 10 rights

" to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers"

It has stupidly created resentment against the European Union as an institution.

It is too early to tell if this a deliberate policy decision by EU control freak bureaucrats and politicians, or if it is a just a by product of the technical attempts to clean up the persistent GCHQ malware which useded to attack the Belgacom ISP (and other snooping on the European Union) revealed in the leaks to the media by Edward Snowden.

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About this blog

This United Kingdom based blog attempts to draw public attention to, and comments on, some of the current trends in ever cheaper and more widespread surveillance technology being deployed to satisfy the rapacious demand by state and corporate bureaucracies and criminals for your private details, and the technological ignorance of our politicians and civil servants who frame our legal systems.

The hope is that you the readers, will help to insist that strong safeguards for the privacy of the individual are implemented, especially in these times of increased alert over possible terrorist or criminal activity. If the systems which should help to protect us can be easily abused to supress our freedoms, then the terrorists will have won.

We know that there are decent, honest, trustworthy individual politicians, civil servants, law enforcement, intelligence agency personnel and broadcast, print and internet journalists etc., who often feel powerless or trapped in the system. They need the assistance of external, detailed, informed, public scrutiny to help them to resist deliberate or unthinking policies, which erode our freedoms and liberties.

Email & PGP Contact

Please feel free to email your views about this blog, or news about the issues it tries to comment on.

Our PGP public encryption key is available for those correspondents who wish to send us news or information in confidence, and also for those of you who value your privacy, even if you have got nothing to hide.

We wiil use this verifiable public key (the ID is available on several keyservers, twitter etc.) to establish initial contact with whistleblowers and other confidential sources, but will then try to establish other secure, anonymous communications channels, as appropriate.

Current PGP Key ID: 0xE08E882B13FC89C which will expire on 30th September 2015.

You can download a free copy of the PGP encryption software from www.pgpi.org
(available for most of the common computer operating systems, and also in various Open Source versions like GPG)

We look forward to the day when UK Government Legislation, Press Releases and Emails etc. are Digitally Signed so that we can be assured that they are not fakes. Trusting that the digitally signed content makes any sense, is another matter entirely.

Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Dissidents

Please take the appropriate precautions if you are planning to blow the whistle on shadowy and powerful people in Government or commerce, and their dubious policies. The mainstream media and bloggers also need to take simple precautions to help preserve the anonymity of their sources e.g. see Spy Blog's Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - or use this easier to remember link: http://ht4w.co.uk

Statewatch - monitoring the state and civil liberties in the European Union

The Policy Laundering Project - attempts by Governments to pretend their repressive surveillance systems, have to be introduced to comply with international agreements, which they themselves have pushed for in the first place

House of Lords - The Law Lords are currently the supreme court in the UK - will be moved to the new Supreme Court in October 2009.

Information Tribunal - deals with appeals under FOIA, DPA both for and against the Information Commissioner

Investigatory Powers Tribunal - deals with complaints about interception and snooping under RIPA - has almost never ruled in favour of a complainant.

Parliamentary Opposition

The incompetent yet authoritarian Labour party have not apologised for their time in Government. They are still not providing any proper Opposition to the current Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition government, on any freedom or civil liberties or privacy or surveillance issues.

UK Government

Home Office - "Not fit for purpose. It is inadequate in terms of its scope, it is inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management systems and processes" - Home Secretary John Reid. 23rd May 2006. Not quite the fount of all evil legislation in the UK, but close.

NIR and ID cards

Stand - email and fax campaign on ID Cards etc. [Now defunct]. The people who supported stand.org.uk have gone on to set up other online tools like WriteToThem.com. The Government's contemptuous dismissal of over 5,000 individual responses via the stand.org website to the Home Office public consultation on Entitlement Cards is one of the factors which later led directly to the formation of the the NO2ID Campaign who have been marshalling cross party opposition to Labour's dreadful National Identity Register compulsory centralised national biometric database and ID Card plans, at the expense of simpler, cheaper, less repressive, more effective, nore secure and more privacy friendly alternative identity schemes.

CommentOnThis.com - comments and links to each paragraph of the Home Office's "Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity Scheme".

De-Materialised ID - "The voluntary alternative to material ID cards, A Proposal by David Moss of Business Consultancy Services Ltd (BCSL)" - well researched analysis of the current Home Office scheme, and a potentially viable alternative.

Surveillance Infrastructures

CameraWatch - independent UK CCTV industry lobby group - like us, they also want more regulation of CCTV surveillance systems.

Every Step You Take a documentary about CCTV surveillance in the Uk by Austrian film maker Nino Leitner.

Transport for London an attempt at a technological panopticon - London Congestion Charge, London Low-Emission Zone, Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, tens of thousands of CCTV cameras on buses, thousands of CCTV cameras on London Underground, realtime road traffic CCTV, Iyster smart cards - all handed over to the Metropolitan Police for "national security" purposes, in real time, in bulk, without any public accountibility, for secret data mining, exempt from even the usual weak protections of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Eeclaim Your DNA from Britain's National DNA Database - model letters and advice on how to have your DNA samples and profiles removed from the National DNA Database,in spite of all of the nureacratic obstacles which try to prevent this, even if you are innocent.

Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair - the rich Uzbek businessman and his shyster lawyers Schillings really made a huge counterproductive error in trying to censor the blogs of Tim Ireland, of all people.

World's First Fascist Democracy - blog with link to a Google map - "This map is an attempt to take a UK wide, geographical view, of both the public and the personal effect of State sponsored fear and distrust as seen through the twisted technological lens of petty officials and would be bureaucrats nationwide."

Panopticon blog - by Timothy Pitt-Payne and Anya Proops. Timothy Pitt-Payne is probably the leading legal expert on the UK's Freedom of Information Act law, often appearing on behlaf of the Information Commissioner's Office at the Information Tribunal.

Georgetown Security Law Brief - group blog by the Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law , at Georgtown University, Washington D.C, USA.

Big Brother Watch - well connected with the mainstream media, this is a campaign blog by the TaxPayersAlliance, which thankfully does not seem to have spawned Yet Another Campaign Organisation as many Civil Liberties groups had feared.

Spy on Moseley - "Sparkbrook, Springfield, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green. An MI5 Intelligence-gathering operation to spy on Muslim communities in Birmingham is taking liberties in every sense" - about 150 ANPR CCTV cameras funded by Home Office via the secretive Terrorism and Allied Matters (TAM) section of ACPO.

FitWatch blog - keeps an eye on the activities of some of the controversial Police Forward Intelligence Teams, who supposedly only target "known troublemakers" for photo and video surveillance, at otherwise legal, peaceful protests and demonstrations.

Other Links

Free Gary McKinnon - UK citizen facing extradition to the USA for "hacking" over 90 US Military computer systems.

Parliament Protest - information and discussion on peaceful resistance to the arbitrary curtailment of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, in the excessive Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Designated Area around Parliament Square in London.

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Please bear in mind the many recent, serious security vulnerabilities which have compromised the Twitter infrastructure and many user accounts, and Twitter's inevitable plans to make money out of you somehow, probably by selling your Communications Traffic Data to commercial and government interests.

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UK Legislation

The United Kingdom suffers from tens of thousands of pages of complicated criminal laws, and thousands of new, often unenforceable criminal offences, which have been created as a "Pretend to be Seen to Be Doing Something" response to tabloid media hype and hysteria, and political social engineering dogmas. These overbroad, catch-all laws, which remove the scope for any judicial appeals process, have been rubber stamped, often without being read, let alone properly understood, by Members of Parliament.

The text of many of these Acts of Parliament are now online, but it is still too difficult for most people, including the police and criminal justice system, to work out the cumulative effect of all the amendments, even for the most serious offences involving national security or terrorism or serious crime.

Foreign Spies / Intelliegence Agencies in the UK

It is not just the UK government which tries to snoop on British companies, organisations and individuals, the rest of the world is constantly trying to do the same, regardless of the mixed efforts of our own UK Intelligence Agencies who are paid to supposedly protect us from them.

Presumably every mainstream media organisation, intelligence agency, serious organised crime or terrorist gang keeps historical copies, so here are some older versions of the London Diplomatic List, for the benefit of web search engine queries, for those people who do not want their visits to appear in the FCO web server logfiles or those whose censored internet feeds block access to UK Government websites.

Campaign Button Links

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

Cracking the Black Box - "aims to expose technology that is being used in inappropriate ways. We hope to bring together the insights of experts and whistleblowers to shine a light into the dark recesses of systems that are responsible for causing many of the privacy problems faced by millions of people."